‘I was the Only One Whose Items Were Checked’: Woman Accuses Ikea Hyderabad of Racism

The Ikea store in Hyderabad has been accused of racism after the store staff frisked a Manipuri woman for items she bought while others before her were not.

The incident came to light after journalist Nitin Sethi tweeted, “Racist treatment at @IKEAIndia store in Hyderabad. Only my wife, from Manipur got frisked for goods she bought. No one else before us. And then all supervisory staff came to defend the racism. Great show from an ‘international store’. Cheers to another usual day.”

Senior Telangana minister KT Rama on Monday described the entire incident “appalling”.

Akoijam Sunita said senior staff were not helpful. “I was one of the many who bought stuffs at @IKEAIndia Hyderabad today. But I was the only one whose purchased items were checked one by one. If this is not #racism then what is it? The senior staffs there were far from helpful. Does @IKEA endorse such behaviour?” she tweeted.

The matter gathered importance after senior Telangana minister KT Rama Rao retweeted about the incident describing it “appalling”, and asked the Swedish furniture store to make amends. “This is appalling and absolutely unacceptable @IKEAIndia. Please ensure a proper apology is issued & more importantly educate, sensitise & train your staff to respect all your customers graciously. Hope you will make amends asap,” Rao said.

MP Asaduddin Owaisi too retweeted the original post of Sethi saying such behaviour was “unacceptable”.

Ikea replied that such a practice was part of their regular check-out protocol. However, it looked like an automated response and the company is yet to release a statement. “As a process, customers who self-checkout are requested for a final check before leaving the store to ensure the billing is correct and customers do not face any problems regarding double charging, repeat scanning of products etc,” the company tweeted.

Objecting to the above statement, Sunita said she would not have complained if it was a matter of “checking”. “If it was just a simple matter of final checking I won’t be tweeting here. Kindly refrain from responding without reading properly. Makes your company look more irresponsible and insensitive,” she said.

Meanwhile, many netizens have asked Ikea to apologise to the complainant.

Read all the Latest News India and Breaking News here